Advent of a global communications network such as the Internet has facilitated exchange of enormous amounts of information. Additionally, costs associated with storage and maintenance of such information has declined, resulting in massive data storage structures. Moreover, technological advances in computer hardware, software and networking have lead to efficient, cost effective computing systems (e.g., desktop computers, laptops, handhelds, cell phones, servers . . . ) that can communicate with each other from essentially anywhere in the world in order to exchange information. Such systems continue to evolve into more reliable, robust and user-friendly systems.
For example, many industries and consumers are leveraging computing technology to improve efficiency and decrease cost through web-based (e.g., on-line) services. Consumers are now enabled to search and retrieve particular information (e.g., via a search engine), purchase goods, view bank statements, invoke monetary transactions (e.g., pay a bill on-line), research products and companies, apply for employment, obtain real-time stock quotes, obtain a college degree, download files and applications, transmit correspondence (e.g., email, chat rooms . . . ), etc. with the click of a mouse.
Installation of such software and/or applications can be complex, time-consuming, and costly when the target environment is distributed (e.g., a distributed network, a distributed networked environment, and the like). A distributed network, which is also on the rise based on technological advances, can be a reliable and pervasive high-band network that is arbitrarily distributed (e.g., networked clients) and/or strategically distributed (e.g., networked servers) that can implement software to integrate and manage components associated therewith. Typically, software deployment and installation is a sequential, tedious, and error-prone process. Moreover, errors associated with deployment of software will multiply, since such software is being installed on multiple computers; either sequentially or concurrently within a distributed networked environment. For instance, if an incorrect DNS server name is implemented, such error will be repeated for each machine the software is being installed upon. The ensuing complexity, which is inherent because of the numerous configurations, settings, and information related to a distributed network, typical installations usually require a costly experienced technician to install and tend to take hours or even days to complete.
For example, processes of installing and preparing server products are becoming increasingly complex. Typically, products have a plurality of interconnected modules or roles, wherein some can coexist together, while others are mutually exclusive. Moreover, many of such server products have diverse prerequisite conditions for installation. Accordingly, tasks associated with obtaining a functional product require more than simply loading the software, as such tasks have corresponding dependencies associated therewith.
Moreover, logic required to manage dependencies is substantially implemented in code. Nonetheless, such coding is typically error prone and time consuming to update, and if change is required, the entire product often needs to be re-compiled and re-built in order to accommodate such change. Additionally, the User Interface (UT) needed to present the modules and tasks to users have to be adjusted and re-built, which can have a cascading effect of generating more work for administrators, localization teams, and the like.